Lana Del Rey lashes out at ‘I wish I was dead already’ interviewer

Singer Lana Del Rey has sparked a war of words with a journalist for Britain’s The Guardian newspaper after taking issue with the writer for asking her questions about death during a recent interview.

The star hit headlines last week when Tim Jonze’s article was published, with the 27 year old apparently admitting she found the premature deaths of tragic soul singer Amy Winehouse and rocker Kurt Cobain glamorous, declaring, “I wish I was dead already.”

The singer’s disturbing comments stunned many of her fans, and she took to Twitter.com late on Thursday to try and explain herself and clear up the controversy.

In a series of messages, Del Rey accused The Guardian reporter of acting in a “sinister” manner, writing, “His leading questions about death and persona were calculated but hiding sinister ambitions and angles…

”I regret trusting the Guardian – I didn’t want to do the interview but the journalist was persistent. Alexis (sic) was masked as a fan.”

Her biting remarks, which have since been deleted from Twitter, caught the attention of Jonze, who fired back at Del Rey by publishing another article in The Guardian on Friday, poking fun at her for failing to even remember the name of her interviewer.

Jonze went on to defend his angle for the interview, explaining, “It’s not pleasant asking a pop star if she thinks the idea of dying young herself is attractive – it’s a dark question, but it’s not a leading one. She has every opportunity to say no. And she can hardly complain about the subject matter: she’d been talking about her icons all dying young, she named her debut album Born to Die and had spent much of the 50 minutes previous to this point telling me how miserable she was.”

He adds, “Ultimately, the problem with Lana’s complaint is that she doesn’t seem to know what she’s actually complaining about. She’s not alleging that I made up her quotes, nor is she claiming that they’ve been ‘twisted’ or that we’ve printed them out of context. Instead she seems annoyed by the fact I wanted her to say interesting things and asked questions that caused her to do so. Well sorry, Lana, but that’s just me doing my job.”

Jonze also released a two-minute audio clip from their lengthy chat to prove he had not coaxed Del Rey into making the death declaration.